Thursday, 9 June 2011
Keystone Kuts
Dr. Rowan Williams, fresh from feeling uncomfortable with Obama for killing Osama, has now announced that the Coalition is undemocratic, because it is doing things to education, health and so on no one voted for. I suppose the same argument can be made about any government that responds to events (dear boy) and makes decisions, and hence, that's actually what democracy is, electing people to go out and make the tough choices - but actually, Dr. Williams (not known for making tough decisions himself) is right about one thing - this is a Keystone Kuts kind of government. Sure, they are decisive and vicious, but they are also bottlers, who "U-Turn" (are you tiring of this phrase and its baby sister, climb-down?) at the drop of a Ken Clark bon mot. Punishment? No 50% time off for confessing rapists, after all. Education? Ooops, we may have to cut student places after all. Health? Umm, well, we listened, and we won't really be doing that after all. This is a government listing more than listening, a stammering series of gaffes, rethinks, and policy deviations. It is a pathetic hodge-podge, and I hope it gets tossed out in 2015. Long time to wait.
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Dear Todd
ReplyDeleteI don't like this government any more than you do but they were democratically elected - sort of. Nick Clegg claims with some justification that if he hadn't gone into coalition with Cameron, there would have been another general election which the Tories would probably have won outright. With a bit of luck, this lot will get the deficit under control just in time for Labour's re-election in 2015.
Best wishes from Simon
Todd, I think Dr. Williams' assertion that the coalition is undemocratic has a great deal of validity. Their flipflopping is of far less concern than the fact that their actions present a genuinely troubling constitutional issue. Certainly coalitions have been tried before (during wartime and in the 30s, for example), and have worked, but crucially those coalitions were on the eloctoral ticket before the election took place, rather than being hammered out behind closed doors over a period of days post-election, as the current coalition was. The issue, as I see it, and I think this is what the Archbishop is suggesting, is that those who voted for the LibDems in the election weren't voting for Conservative policies: quite the opposite, in fact. The bulk of the vote, then, went to the liberal centre (LibDem and Labour) rather than to the conservative right: the Conservative party were able to form a government precisely because the (majority) liberal vote was bisected between the two other parties. Hence the current government's actions essentially flying in the face of what the election told us: that some kind of centrist, left-leaning government was desired by the general populace, just not one headed up by an increasingly beleagured Labour party.
ReplyDeleteSimon @ Gists and Piths
Todd, I know what the bishop said to the actress, you triduan mock executioner at the episodic wotsit in sacred chaunt, babes; I know Fiona & Judy aint ever gonna fall in print as Eric 'n Chuck whoever, dearest darling, deepest and most settled, ancient, modern and everything within, instinct, reader: there's a lot of rumors spreading about - Judy and Fiona - swifty-mate, echo and Keva, Sampson, Kevin the Birkenhead-scouse bunny-fan, kopite, red to the death, you know; you fucking know, Todddless bespectacled slim sainted psycho-dramatic bonafide Canadian-British-English-Irish-Scot-Welsh LA clanger-in-lore, echoing in a silent stream of intellectual & emotive success; bought and paid for, loosely metaphorical, unable to lie, straight-up bloomer, 8 January 1964, Ronald Eldon Sexsmith, legendary unknown troubador, on-call, songs as Eva Cassidy's, his voice itself too beautiful, too brilliant, too bewitching in youth for sensible lovers of language to find, cliche, random arrangements, evolutionary hearings, waves, stores, churches, pubs, cafes and hotels; picked from a list of redundant banalities celebrated by british working-class romantic stalwarts whose loyalty to a cause, any cause, caught in the axis of terror & evil do-gooding dalmation experts in shellacking and lying between two impossibilities of logic, fantasy, were-dams, dogs, portals, trash-rag alive itself and loving every single moment, saintly indeed our parties and creeds, potatos and sweedes, turnips and religion, montheist, triumvirate, troika, internet-insurgent, rebel, pause. Todd. Make me yours.
ReplyDeleteHe don't know how to lie or undermine you
He don't know how to steal
How to deal or deceive
So leave him alone
Set him free
'Cause he's speaking with the angel
Speaking with the angel that only he can see.
You'd say he's so helpless
But what about you?
You don't pull the string
Don't you know anything?
Leave him alone, let him be
'Cause he's speaking with the angel
Speaking with the angel that only he can see
Would you teach him 'bout heaven?
Would you show him how to love the earth?
Would you poison him with prejudice from
the moment of his birth?
He in the name of love, he in the blood of lamb
He that never lays blame, he don't even know his name
So leave him alone, set him free
'Cause he's speaking with the angel
Speaking with the angel (the very one)
that spoke to you and me
Oh do you remember?
Ron in the Crane bar, Cork